Not that 1975 was a season to overlook in the Nicklaus canon. It proved to be one of his best, and Pinehurst capped it. He won five times and was named the PGA Player of the Year for the fourth time. Two of those victories were in major championships, including The Masters (his fifth) and the PGA Championship (his fourth), which came a mere 31 days before the start of the ’75 World Open.

Jack Nicklaus is forever adorned in Pinehurst after winning the 1959 North and South Amateur.

But Nicklaus had won in Pinehurst long before he toured Pinehurst No. 2 in 4-under 280 in September 1975. Just a few weeks before he made his signature splash on the golf scene with a victory in the 1959 U.S. Amateur, Nicklaus captured the 1959 North and South Amateur at Pinehurst, clipping Gene Andrews 1-up, but with scores of 83 and 84 in the 36-hole final when No. 2 may have been its toughest.

Nicklaus was 19. Stocky. With a crew cut.

Years later, he reflected on the victory.

“Back then the fairways were firm and the greens were firm,” Nicklaus recounts, as told by author Lee Pace in his book, The Spirit of Pinehurst. “There was virtually no rough. The ball ran through the fairways into the trees. … There weren’t really many good scores back then. I didn’t feel I played all that badly, but I wasn’t near par when I won.”

But his career highlight at Pinehurst may have come without him playing a single shot.

Jack Nicklaus’ locker in the North and South Locker Room at Pinehurst.

Nicklaus’ son Jackie chose to play collegiately at the University of North Carolina in part because of his fondness of No. 2. OK, perhaps it was more than just a part of the reason: “No. 2 was the reason I went to Carolina,” Jack II told Pace.

Nicklaus, as Pace tells it, originally planned to make a quick trip to Pinehurst on his way to Dublin, Ohio, and The Memorial Tournament. But Jackie kept winning and Nicklaus, always the dedicated family man, wasn’t going to miss the action. While galleries swelled to more than 2,000 people, only one of them mattered, at least to Peter Parsons, who lost 4 & 3 to Jackie in the semifinals.

Jack Nicklaus II’s locker in the North and South Locker Room at Pinehurst.

“It wasn’t the gallery that bothered me, it was one person in the gallery,” Pace quotes Parsons.